No, white people are not being denied COVID treatment on the basis of skin color
In another case of Donald Trump’s racism occasionally spilling out of him like toxic waste from a corroded barrel, the former president recently unleashed a false claim that whites were being denied COVID-19 vaccinations because of their race.
“The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating ... white people to determine who lives and who dies,” Trump said Saturday before a crowd in Arizona. “If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics . ... In New York state, if you’re white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical health.”
This is wildly untrue. Whites are not being turned down in New York or anywhere else for vaccinations or treatments based on ethnicity.
Rather, as reported by the Associated Press, Trump’s bigoted lie apparently is based on a New York policy in which race can be one consideration for dispensing of oral antiviral treatments. These treatments are in limited supply, and the policy is designed to ensure they are distributed to the people who are at greatest risk of severe disease from the coronavirus.
As stated in the policy, “Non-white race or Hispanic/latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.”
But Trump, as he so often does, twisted the issue and weaponized it politically. It was clearly an example of him trying to motivate his voters by telling them that “the other” — in this case Blacks, Latinos and other people of color — are taking things away from white Christians. In other situations, “the other” might be Muslims, the LGBTQ community or women, but the common denominator is that Trump vilifies these groups to stoke the white-grievance sentiment and racism that infect many of his core supporters.
This is the same tactic the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalists used for the better part of a century to justify suppressing equal rights for Blacks and other minority groups.
But as Americans know all too well, such comments and other displays of racism are nothing new from Trump. The son of bigot who was arrested during a KKK riot in New York, Trump has a long and well-documented history of discriminating against people of color as a residential property and casino owner.
Now comes his lie about COVID-19 vaccinations and treatments, another example in which something Trump said could cause harm for untold numbers of people. It threatens to further fuel resentment toward Americans of color among certain whites who support Trump, including violent white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Boogaloo Bois.
Meanwhile, unvaccinated white Americans also stand to lose if Trump’s falsification dissuades them from seeking their shots or treatments.
This can’t be stated emphatically enough: Anyone wanting to receive a COVID-19 vaccination or antivirals can get them. Vaccines are the best defense against contracting a severe infection and passing the disease along to family members, friends, work colleagues and the community at large.
As for Trump, his remark over the weekend served as an unwelcome reminder of his baked-in racism.